


I Love You Like a Pack of Dogs

by soupgoblin



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, But Mostly Hurt, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, I... have no idea what to call this, The Hunt, acab ESPECIALLY daisy, its just Basira and daisy whole story but short and sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:54:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26605549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupgoblin/pseuds/soupgoblin
Summary: an exploration of daisy and basira, basira and daisy, from beginning to end
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	I Love You Like a Pack of Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> 179 spoilers  
> title from I love you like an alcoholic by the taxpayers - not really that fitting but it has the word dog in it  
> anyway daisy is my favourite character and I couldn't let her go without a fanfare, so I put I exist I exist I exist by flatsound on repeat and made this. ill miss that bastard.

Daisy and Basira are partnered and neither of them want to be there. They work alone and they have jobs to do and they aren’t here to make friends. But then they are sectioned and they see monsters, real monsters, and Daisy pushes Basira out of their path. “I got you,” she says breathlessly as the blood of the bestial monster they were hunting splashes onto her face. And maybe a partner isn’t so bad after all.

And the world keeps getting a little darker and the mysteries keep getting a little deeper and every time Basira thinks she understands the world she just gets more afraid and uncertain. But Daisy claps her on the shoulder and says “I got you,” and she has got her, whatever they do. And while Basira would never admit it, maybe it’s not quite as hard when they’re together.

And she finds Daisy in the woods with a knife to Jon’s throat and she talks her down as if coaxing a child away from their favourite toy. And the nagging in her gut every time she sees the white line on Jon’s throat seems to want to tell her something. But Jon _is_ a monster, even if he doesn’t deserve to die. But Daisy listened when she told her to stop. But Daisy was just trying to do her job. And the blood on her face looks just the same as the blood when she pushed Basira out of the way on their first mission. It’s all just red. And who is she kidding, when they are alone and not talking but Daisy brushes her hand over Basira’s and tells her in an almost inaudible whisper “I got you,” none of that matters. Basira has Daisy and Daisy has Basira. It’ll be ok if they’re together.

And before they go into the unknowing they say nothing, but look at each other and nod. And as the world falls apart Basira thinks of everything real – the ground on the soles of her feet and the air in her lungs and the open sky outside and how Daisy’s face makes her feel and Daisy’s face and Daisy’s face and _she gets out._

And Daisy does not.

Basira is angry. She hunts Elias’s stupid leads and though she was never the hunter Daisy was, she can do anything when pushed. And she was just getting comfortable in nihilism when fucking Jon brings back the fucking coffin with fucking Daisy in it and it makes her so sickeningly fucking hopeful its unbearable. And then she leaves, and when she comes back, she sees her.

She cracks open the door mid-sentence to Jon and just stops. Because it’s her. She’s frail and she looks too small for her bones. She’s still tall but she’s never looked so fragile. And she’s covered in dirt and gripping Jon’s hand like he'll disappear if she lets go, knuckles white and bloody. And she’s smiling. And oh god, it’s almost the Daisy before the monsters. She’s hollower and sadder and smaller, but the raging and the hunting and the cruelty is softened. And she says in that quiet, breathless voice,

“Hi.”

And all Basira can think is,

“Oh my god.”

That night Basira traces the daisy scar on her partner’s back, stark white even against her bloodless skin. She got it when she was attacked by her best friend. And now that memory is on her body forever, and it is shaped like a flower. Daisy turns around and rests her head against Basira’s and the streetlight outside lights one side of her face up in a bath of red.

“I want to be better. I’m going to be better. I promise, Basira. I don’t want to be the person I was before. I’m not listening to the blood.” Basira can’t find the words to reply. It’s _Daisy._ How could she ever think she needed Basira’s forgiveness? “I got you,” Daisy says, lifting Basira’s chin up so they are face to face, and Basira does not need to respond with words.

And it wasn’t going well before but it all starts falling apart. There are people in the archives hunting them and there isn’t a way out and –

“Basira, promise me something.”

“What - no. Daisy, no.”

“Basira, when this is over, you need to find me. And kill me. Promise me.”

 **“** _No_. No, Daisy, we’ll figure something out.”

And she knows she’s lying but she just got Daisy back. It’ll be ok if they’re together, right? God, she just got Daisy back, anything but this-

 **“** These last few months… it was always borrowed time, wasn’t it? Can’t outrun it forever.”

Basira thinks of Daisy’s face half shadowed by the dim streetlight. What, did she think they deserved a happy ending?

 _“_ Daisy…” she says, and she puts every desperate ounce of love and regret into the word

 **“** Promise me.”

 **“** I promise.”

And now she stands in a forge and her hand is trembling like a bitch as she points a gun at monster-Daisy. It’s not her. It’s not her. This is what she wanted. It’s not h-

But of course she has to go and speak.

“Basira?” And of course she remembers her. She’s in there and she knows Basira and all of a sudden it crashes down on her that maybe Daisy isn’t inside the monster but is the monster, and maybe none of those monsters they hunted were monsters after all.

“Come. Got to get them,” Daisy growls. And everything is happening so fast and she’s got Jon and she knows Basira and she’s got a man’s entrails up her muzzle and she broke through the hunt for Basira and –

“Partner. Come.” Partner. “Hey partner,” says Daisy on the first day they met. “Come on,” and they were never anything but villains and they were cruel and evil and awful, but god the world is already burning and Daisy wants her to burn it with her and does it matter anymore? There’s no happy ending for monsters like them.

“I can’t leave her like this. She’s always had my back. Always.”

Jon is saying something but she can’t hear him. She takes a step forwards and vaguely registers hot tears streaming down her face.

“Not now. Not after everything.”

Basira reaches up and touches the side of Daisy’s jaw softly.

But she made a promise.

Maybe it’s time she killed her first real monster.

She leans into Daisy and presses their foreheads together, and, light enough that Jon and Marin won't hear, she whispers “I got you.”

And Basira shoots Daisy in the fucking head.

And now she stands alone over Daisy’s body, in the flickering light of the furnaces. She can feel blood splattered on her face, and she knows it is red and unpoetic. Daisy does not forgive or hate her. She is just dead. She was a bad person with a daisy-shaped scar from her best friend and now her corpse is lying dead on the ground with a bullet wound from her partner and the world is better for it and Basira has never been so alone in her entire life. God, they were awful people. They deserved each other, the two of them. A perfect pair of atrocities.

Basira crumples to the filth covered ground and starts sobbing. No one helps her up.

**Author's Note:**

> if all dogs go to heaven but all cops go to hell, where’s daisy?


End file.
